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Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

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Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#131

Post by vyhd »

wwww4alll wrote: post #129
chroem- wrote: post #75

My work sent out a memo today regarding what pronouns I'm allowed to use. We're in the middle of a cultural revolution, and the current trend seems to be for rapid acceleration rather than moderation.

It’s been steady progression for a while. Welcome to the struggle, lol. The only bright side is that the people on other side are really incompetent. The gender studies degrees have no meaning when power goes out and sink is backed up. Most people play along because they think it’s their kids play acting to progressive ideals. They will get rude awakening when the little progs come for their heads. This will play out…

This is a wildly incendiary ideological rant and it has no place on HN.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#132

Post by lwansbrough »

Yeah someone should compile a list of all the cultural elements of western society (books, movies, music, etc.) that include racist symbolism that should be banned in order to appease these people. Then they will actually have to justify the mass book burning as a whole instead of slowly picking off these dangerous offenders like Dr. Seuss one by one.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#133

Post by brailsafe »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #62

About 5 years ago a friend of mine was saying, "yeah, it's bad at the universities but it doesn't affect the real world." Pretty funny how quickly things accelerated. I'd like to get off this ride.

Eventually those people graduate

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#134

Post by caeril »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #102
supernova87a wrote: post #55

Now this part is getting a little too carried away. It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. It is another (and overstepping imo) for Ebay to restrict individual people from selling to others goods that are not illegal or in violation of their other practical rules (no selling jewelry, monetary equivalents, etc). This falls into the cate…

> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Ebay is a private merchant. They can choose what to list too. Maybe this presents a copyright problem with clones, we don't know. I found the books by googling the title and PDF because I was curious about why they were removed. Curiosity satisifed and I still love Dr. Seuss.

The "private company" argument, while fully and technically correct, is such a ridiculous canard to trot out at a time when we slide rapidly into public-private authoritarianism.

Someone (probably), in 1934 Hacker News: "BASF, Deutsche Bank, Hugo Boss, Bayer, BMW, and Siemens are private merchants. They can choose what to sell, and to whom. Maybe this presents a survival problem for the Jews, we don't know."

I guess it's ok since the public-private authoritarianism and book-burning is left-leaning this time?

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#135

Post by crowbahr »

elindbe3 wrote: post #68

Thank God I have ebay to protect me from reading Doctor Seuss! Now please excuse me while I go bid on a vintage copy of "Charles Manson In His Own Words".

While I think ebay bans are ridiculous most of this furor is about old, very racist books that Seuss himself apologized for later in life.

99% of Seuss readers have never read Oh Beyond Zebra, and nobody will miss the Cat's Quizzer.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#136

Post by madeofpalk »

chroem- wrote: post #75

My work sent out a memo today regarding what pronouns I'm allowed to use. We're in the middle of a cultural revolution, and the current trend seems to be for rapid acceleration rather than moderation.

Would love to see this email.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#137

Post by tastygreenapple »

missedthecue wrote: post #82
jaimex2 wrote: post #73

If you want to send a clear message to eBay you can close your account here. https://www.ebay.com.au/help/account/changing-account-settin... It should not be up to them what is and isn't offensive. I did the same to Netflix last year. Money talks at the end of the day.

and thus, the cancel cold war escalates another step

It's not cancel culture when you opt out of something, it's cancel culture when you decide for others that that they can't do something.

Throwing these books away isn't cancel culture. Telling other people they can't sell or buy the book is cancel culture.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#138

Post by naebother »

Pfhreak wrote: post #90
naebother wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is one thing for libraries and bookstores to decide not to offer for borrowing or sale things that they disagree with. Private libraries can do whatever they like. Public ones should be required to carry even the most offensive book.

You realize that libraries are not infinite in space or capacity, right? Every book in a library necessarily pushes out some other book that could have been in there but didn't make the cut. Given that, libraries shouldn't be required to carry every book, they should optimize their collections for what their local users want to read. If it turns out that old out of print childrens' books aren't popular, then why shou…

Obviously, you can't carry every book ever forever. I just meant that the general public should have timely access to books deemed too controversial by the elites, so that the plebs may make up their own mind.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#139

Post by birdyrooster »

refurb wrote: post #119
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #62

About 5 years ago a friend of mine was saying, "yeah, it's bad at the universities but it doesn't affect the real world." Pretty funny how quickly things accelerated. I'd like to get off this ride.

Yup. The adults in the room should have nipped this crap in the bud but instead they entertained it. Now it’s a much bigger problem to solve. Check out SFUSD renaming racists schools like “Lincoln High”. Eventually parents had start a recall effort to end it.

Pretty sure they tabled it for now but it definitely did not end.

Re: Dr. Seuss books deemed offensive will be delisted from eBay

#140

Post by o_v_o »

nph5667 wrote: post #29

What bothers me is the speed with which this process - "accused -> convinced -> executed" happens. We are not discussing things anymore. Today, you could tweet any accusations, and, no matter how ridiculous they look at first, it will lead to a race of who is taking them most seriously. Something definitely is broken. Look at what happened to the "okay". 4chan forced that meme 5 years ago in what they thought is a mi…

It's 6 of Dr. Seuss's books, and ones that most people haven't heard of. If you actually look at the content of the books, they are clearly racist and demeaning to those they make caricatures of.

And in any case, it was not a sudden "canceling" or anything approaching that. Seuss's estate, managed by his family, made the decision after much deliberation to cease the publication of only six books due to the content. You could even see it as an anti-cancellation - Seuss's family wants to avoid him being associated with the obviously racist content of some of his work.

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